


goodbye, captain

by jemmasimmns (laurellance)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, RipFic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 02:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14583345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurellance/pseuds/jemmasimmns
Summary: Love shouldn't feel like goodbye, Sara thinks to herself and as she watches Rip leave, all she can think of is thatthis has been one of the cruelest goodbyes I’ve ever experienced.Or: Rip and Sara leading up to Rip leaving the waverider. Set immediately during/after the season two finale.





	goodbye, captain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rip Hunter Appreciation Week

_Love shouldn't feel like goodbye_ , Sara thinks to herself and as she watches Rip leave, all she can think of is that _this has been one of the cruelest goodbyes I’ve ever experienced_.

* * *

 

Love’s a funny thing, that little seed that blossomed in the heart that grew strong with love and affection, experience and heartache. It’s an unstoppable force, the silent yearning of what would forever be gone, of what would forever be out of sight, trapped within the labyrinth of memories, searching for a way out only to find all the exits had been sealed in long ago.

Sara’s not familiar with the concept of what-if. She’s all but banished that from her, stripped it raw and cleaned the scars on her body for everyone to see. _This is me_ , she wants to say, _the good, the bad and the ugly_. The scars that cross her arms don’t define her, nor does her past or her mistakes. She is her own being, for better or for worse, and that’s as honest as she wants to get right now, because if it’s one thing she shared in common with Rip, it was their probable reliance on alcohol.

 _We’re not addicts_ , Rip had told her once late at night, stone faced, as though he had believed his self lie more than anything else in the world. She doesn’t begrudge Rip of his choice of forgetting, nor does she begrudge his actions. She doesn’t understand them, sure, but he’s his own person and she’s her own person, and neither of them had been mind readers in the slightest. 

She knows regrets, those she can deal with. They were the more pervasive scars, the ones that never truly healed, the ones that people got used to. They were like a permanent appendage, the unwanted reminder that stayed with her always, reminding her of what she had once had and what she had lost.

But what-ifs, they were another story all together. It wasn’t like she didn’t understand the concept behind it, she did, but she couldn’t understand why they existed. Sara was fearless: she leapt and flew without giving a damn about consequences, falling hard on her side, bruised, but still living, still breathing. It didn’t matter who she hurt, or what she did wrong, she was determined to try, even if it was a futile attempt that only ended in failure. What-ifs, they stuck with her. They weren’t regrets, but they weren’t hopes either. They were pervasive, invading her daydreams with kisses she didn’t take, with words she should have said, with _I Love You_ too late, because the dead don’t reply, as much as she desperately pleads their cold, silent graves to.

No, what-ifs stayed. They haunted her, an eternal shadow she couldn’t escape, the phantom pain she didn’t know she could feel.

* * *

 

When Miranda and Jonas had died, Rip fell in a depressive stupor. In the time he had spent by himself, with Gideon as his every steady companion, they had dominated his thoughts. Their memories were alive under the touch of his fingers, their smiles ethereal in their grace and youth, frozen in time for all eternity. Time, she was a cruel mistress to serve, the larger than life world that was the possibilities that would have changed everything.

What Rip learns is that every action you do has a consequence, whether it is positive or negative. That had been why the time masters had instructed, that under no circumstances, no matter how dire the situation was, could time be changed, even for a second. They were to leave as silently as they came, a ghost wandering and collecting information, and leaving no trace that it had been there. 

Rip had broken that rule a very, very long time ago. The time masters demanded the most absolute of loyalties: one toe out of line and they were demoted for negligence and intentional disregard of the principles the time masters were sworn to uphold. 

They had been liars, up till the very end. Oh how Rip had enjoyed watching the oculus blow up, watching as it imploded from within, as the inferno consumed their terrible, corrupt organization from inside their very halls, as all that remained of the oculus had been scrap pieces of metal and fabric floating around aimlessly. 

* * *

 

Sara had saved Rip once; she had entered his mind and braved the corrupted memories of the team, and she had told him that cowering in fear within his own mind did nothing but weaken him. Take control, she tells him, take control of what is yours, and let no one steal your light from you.

Rip listens, and all Sara can do is be relieved that her Rip, her Captain, is back. The matter of shame and regret is another story, and that’s one she can attest to. It’s not pretty: it’s the deadly cocktail of self loathing and looking around the people you hurt and trying to understand why they’re forgiving you when you can’t even forgive yourself. It’s the constant self doubt that no matter what happened, it stained you, physically and mentally. The blood never gets washed off from your hands, and the pain caused would stay, haunting dreams and turning them into blood curdling nightmares waiting to happen.

There are things Sara wants to tell Rip about regret, about mistakes, but if he didn’t know them he soon would. They’re personal truths, even for her, because she would wear her heart on her sleeve for Rip, and that was a diamond absolute. Rip understood her, and he knew her, the good, and the bad.

He didn’t hate her for what she was, and he didn’t blame her for her past actions, and that in itself was a blessing. Her actions keep her up at night and they should. She’s ruined lives in League of Assassins and her second chance at life was only successful by the efforts of Laurel, Laurel who is now dead, and it’s ironic, really.

The Canary, who should be in a grave and yet isn’t, and the Black Canary, who should be kicking and screaming and giving the criminals of the street the comeuppance they deserved, bones lying in the grave of Dinah Laurel Lance, buried, all the life inside her forever gone. 

Sara shakes her head and clears her mind of them for the time being. She would entertain her demons over drinks, and until the time for drinks came, she would ignore them.

* * *

 

Regret blooms poignant inside Rip, coursing through is veins, unfurling in his dreams. He sees their faces in what little sleep he gets, the anger, the disgust and the raw betrayal in their full glory. Rip understands that he was brainwashed, but he should have known better. Playing with the time drive was a tricky, deadly thing, but they were headed for death; the only option he had was to scatter all of them throughout time and hope they ended up somewhere, sometime they were out of danger.

There are times where he feels it overwhelms him. His breathing doesn’t suffocate him, but the regret holds him at a chokehold from which he cannot escape him, and so he tries his best to live with it, because there is nothing else he can do about it. Time could not be changed for this, time could not be altered. Time would have to remain this way, and Rip would have to learn to live with it.

It is somewhere along that line that he considers leaving his beloved vessel. He’s been aboard the waverider for over a decade; he has experienced highs and lows aboard it, moments of harmony, moments of joy and moments of unspeakable grief. He remembers these moments where they happened: in the captain’s office, in the hallways, or in the private chambers. They’ve been etched within the walls of his memory, never to be forgotten.

The memories feel too heavy now, a burden that he doesn’t want to bear this particular moment. An unspoken testimonial of being a time traveller was bearing witness to history, to watch as the world burned and not lift a finger. It weighs on him now, more than ever, all the people he couldn’t have saved, all the people he wishes he could have kept from an early and preventible death, but there was nothing more he could do about it now.

Maybe, and Rip finds himself shocked at considering this suggestion, he should start anew off the waverider. Find his way once more, this time by himself. 

It’s a travesty of what a captain should do, but he hasn’t been a good and proper captain since his brainwashing. Sara had taken over that role already.

* * *

 

They talk one last time, Rip and Sara, the alcohol keeping the conversation alive. Rip carries his remorse in silence, in his stature and in his tone. He’s careful not to offend, not to be too bold, but the hints on his tongue and there’s nothing more Sara wants right now than for them to argue. To yell until their voices gave out and they were toe to toe, their faces so close to the other that a kiss seemed inevitable. She misses the quick snaps he would give when he was annoyed, the way he didn’t need to say anything to express his displeasure. And Rip, Rip’s just there to make amends one last time.

It begins the way it usually did, the two of them with the table between them. Sara’s elected to stand, Rip in one of the chairs. He greets her the way he usually does, frank and to be point, an unspoken invitation of coming in. It’s technically their office now, but they’ve both been acting weird around each other. Sara gives him space to deal with it on his own and if it turns out to be the wrong strategy, then so be it.

He tells her he’s considering leaving the waverider. That she was doing a good job as Captain, that she worked well with the team, that above all he was impressed. There’s something final in those words, something akin to something farewell, and Sara’s lost far too many people for her to lose another.

She gives a noise of skepticism. _Where would you go? You’re a man out of his own time, after all_. She can’t lose her Captain, the one that reminded her of her humanity, the one that gave her a purpose when she had none. She wouldn’t lose him, not after what she had done to get him back.

 _I’m sure I’ll find somewhere_ , he replies, and Sara ignores the sinking feeling in her stomach that this was final. She doesn’t want to believe it is, but she knows that same feeling, the one that reminded her that self imposed isolation could be a good thing. She knows that feeling well, better than she does herself sometimes, when the regrets that stemmed from her youth and the League popped up from time to time.

But it was never the right way to go.

Rip looks at her, and Sara reads the intent off him easily. He was going to do it, with or without her knowing, and he had just told her what his plan of action was. The trust runs deep, deeper than the hurt, and once again Sara and Rip are playing the same game of duck and avoid their feelings they always have. It’s been ingrained in them, through lessons of childhood, mistakes and habits, and for them to acknowledge it was a rare thing, even rarer when they were willing to talk about it openly.

It’s that same game of duck and avoid that Sara feels in her heart right now. She can feel it inside her, this feeling that feels like love and affection, a deep thing that aches for Rip right now, because he is hurting and she doesn’t know what to tell him that would make him feel better. Nothing would, she knows from experience, because he would have to come to terms with it on his own. He had to know his past better than he knew anything else in the world, to accept it, the good, the bad and the ugly, and to learn to make peace with it.

She hopes he’ll find it, because she doesn’t think he’ll find it here. The ship’s got too many memories and too many faces on it for clarity, and it’s probably the last thing Rip wants to see right now. She doesn’t blame him, she really doesn’t, but the last thing Rip _needs_ to be is alone right now.

She only hopes he’ll find what he needs, because if it were up to her, he would always be by her side.

Something inside her hurts for Rip, for the pain he’s gone though, and that part of her begs for her to never let him go. She tells him, _in that case, you have my blessing,_ whatever it is you’re planning on doing, and Rip looks relieved that she isn’t upset.

The part of her that hurts for Rip screams now, and the logical side of her that wasn’t affected before demands now that he stay.

Sara lets him go.

* * *

 

 _You know what love is_? She asks Gideon after Rip’s left, _it’s heartbreaking_.

* * *

_Goodbye Captain_ , she wants to tell Rip, but it’s too cruel, it’s too sudden, and it’s too much for her heart. Her heart beats faster than it should and she stands mobile, watching as he walked away, off the ship he had bequeathed to her charge. 

She has to believe that they would cross paths again, that they would meet again, but she’s not sure. She wants to be sure, but she understands the doubts Rip has, and those dictated a new beginning because staying in the present was too harsh, there was simply too much hurt for the scab to heal and the new skin cells to grow over.

And, if she was being honest, she’s not sure where she’d be without Captain Rip Hunter.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at riphunter.


End file.
